To have peace with God, to have strength to walk before God, is the sum of the great promises of the covenant of grace.
In these things is the life of our souls. Without them in some comfortable measure, to live is to die.
What good will our lives do us if we see not the face of God sometimes in peace? if we have not some strength to walk with him?
It is perhaps but a little while and thou shalt see the face of God in peace no more. Perhaps by tomorrow thou shalt not be able to pray, read, hear, or perform any duties with the least cheerfulness, life, or vigour; and possibly thou mayst never see a quiet hour whilst thou livest,—that thou mayst carry about thee broken bones, full of pain and terror, all the days of thy life. Yea, perhaps God will shoot his arrows at thee, and fill thee with anguish and disquietness, with fears and perplexities; make thee a terror and an astonishment to thyself and others; show thee hell and wrath every moment; frighten and scare thee with sad apprehensions of his hatred; so that thy sore shall run in the night season, and thy soul shall refuse comfort; so that thou shalt wish death rather than life, yea, thy soul may choose strangling. Consider this a little,—though God should not utterly destroy thee, yet he might cast thee into this condition, wherein thou shalt have quick and living apprehensions of thy destruction.
John Owen. Mortification of Sin in Believers.
